Posted by Chris @ 10:40 PM
The Easter weekend has been quite a momentous occasion for Charlotte, she has finally taken her first solo steps, and like a good Dad I've made sure I captured the events on video :o) Below is a short 30 sec clip, enjoy!
For those who like photos, there's a couple of those too!
Posted by Chris @ 9:41 PM
At work we use Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server as our development environment. TFS in particular is really great, it provides source control and task management, perfect.
However, at home, when I'm coding sites like Recipe Binder and Track Playing, I use Visual Web Developer Express. This sadly doesn't support plugins, and there isn't a "TFS Express", so there isn't a way for me to protect my source code, or have change tracking. I've also found the various tasks I have for these websites scattered around, in emails, scraps of paper, and spreadsheets. I needed a way to backup my code, track my changes, and manage my tasks a bit better.
It sounded like a problem too far for a lone developer who wanted it all for free, however then I found this blog post by Trevor Power. He essentially had the same problem as me, and pointed me in the direction of 2 things, Subversion and Unfuddle.
Subversion I'd heard about before, but had never taken the plunge with it, simply because I'd not been able to find a suitable Subversion server to use (Google Code does it, along with a few others, but they require the projects to be open source).
Unfuddle on the other hand allows you to host unlimited Subversion repositories for free, with no restrictions about it being open source. But rather than just hosting my Subversion repository, it is also a project management tool, allowing me to create tickets and associate change sets with them, much like TFS does. It does a heap of other stuff too (which you can find out about via their tour), but I don't need those.
Unfuddle's free service, which is what I'm using, restricts you to just 1 project, and 200MB of space for your source code. However, source code being just text files, you're unlikely to hit that. The 1 project restriction isn't an issue either. Since you can create multiple Subversion repositories you can have one for each website you create. Then, within the project settings in Unfuddle you can create separate components - these you then name to represent each "project" you have, and assign your tickets accordingly. So, for example I have 1 main project, called "Chris Riley Projects", and within that I have a few components, "Track Playing", "Recipe Binder Facebook" and "Recipe Binder".
So, now when I have an idea or think of something I need to do I can create a ticket in Unfuddle, and then forget about it. And when I think about what I have to do, I have a list right there, that I can use just like my work item list in TFS. Then, when I "commit" changes to Subversion, I can associate that revision with a ticket, so that I know what changes were made for which ticket.
In terms of using Subversion, I'm using the TortoiseSVN Subversion client. This seems to be the most widely used client, and it is easy to see why. As you can't use plugins in Visual Studio Express you have to use it in Windows Explorer, but that isn't really an issue. Once you've got your files added to your repository, changed files are easily highlighted by TortoiseSVN, and you can commit back to the repository with ease. I'd go into more detail, but the best thing to do is to get acquainted with this excellent online Subversion book to understand the basics of Subversion, then install TortoiseSVN, read the help and get going!
So, all in all I now have my source code backed up, it is under change control so I know I won't loose previous work, and I have a way of working that means I don't have endless lists swimming around in my head. If this sounds anything like you, don't delay and get yourself sorted out!
Any questions on specific details fire away, I'll be happy to help if I can. I hope to post some more details about using Subversion at a later date as well, mainly my experiences with branching and merging, so keep an eye out for that.
Posted by Chris @ 9:25 PM
Charlotte has been a little behind the other children we know in terms of walking, she just needs to gain a bit more confidence on her own two feet. She has been happily crawling and cruising (walking supporting herself with furniture), but doesn't really stand unaided. Until now!
Today all our encouragement to help her to stand up from sitting has paid off. Of course in true Dad style I captured this on video for you all to see. I must apologise now for my voice, I'm in full on encouraging Dad mode ;o)
So the next step, quite literally, is baby steps!
Posted by Chris @ 1:35 PM
I tell you what, some people get right on my nerves. This muppet, in the news today, said he wouldn't drive a bus because it had an advertising campaign on the side of the bus that said "There's probably no God." (This is a fantastic campaign by the way, and being an atheist I fully support them spreading the word.) Well let me say this, what if the shoe is on the other foot, and the slogan read "There's probably a God" would we suddenly have reports in the news of bus drivers not wanting to drive buses - I think not. Well, I tell you now, I'm making a stand for atheists everywhere, if I see a bus with the slogan "There's probably a God" written down the side of it, I will not drive it, or ride it, for that matter. So there.
Chris wins.
Posted by Chris @ 7:38 PM
Hi all. As my Mum of all people keeps telling me, I've not posted much on here. Well, as usual I'm a busy man, with not a lot to say that would interest those here.
Anyway, you can't have failed to notice that it was Christmas a few weeks ago, and as a result of that there are a load of photos on Flickr to have a flick through. I've also got an absolute shed load of videos to go through, but I've not had the time or inclination to bother going through them yet, so watch this space.
Posted by Chris @ 8:04 PM
Call it being a dad, or bloggers' fatigue, but I've not written much on here this year. I think the post frequency sparkline shows the trend quite nicely!
Anyway, the main news to report is Charlotte is 1! It is quite hard to comprehend that a full year has passed since she first came into this world. To celebrate this fact she has had no less than 3 birthday parties, plus her actual birthday as well!
If you've not seen them already there are lots of Charlotte pictures available on Flickr (although you'll have to be my contact to see them).
Posted by Chris @ 7:13 PM
I'm not taking part in Movember (the month formerly known as November, renamed to support men growing a moustache to help raise money and awareness about male health issues) as Dawn doesn't like facial hair, at all. However that doesn't mean I have to miss out on the moustache fun - I have grown a stealth moustache! The stealth part being I just didn't shave, and didn't tell Dawn, and waited to see how long I could get away with it before Dawn commented on my hairy face. The answer, a better than expected 5 days!
However, on Saturday the game was up, and so I did some shaving, but not before taking some photos! First I trimmed it into a Goatee (of sorts), and then into a moustache. Based on these photos I think Dawn was right, I look shocking!
If you'd like to sponsor Tony, or any of the guys taking part in Movember from work, follow the links below.
Donate to Tony – Your donation will be registered against Tony [View Tony's Mo Space]
Donate to Team SDL – Your donation will be divided equally between everyone in the SDL team.
